This, then, is what the International Year of Biodiversity should be about: it should be about conveying the excitement of discovery in biology, coupled with an intimate knowledge of the majesty of nature. For we must start cherishing our fellow life forms, and treating them well: we need them, in more ways than we probably imagine. Their loss makes the planet — and ourselves — poorer.

So please be up-standing, raise your glasses and join me in a toast to: “Other Life Forms!”

And let’s make sure that in the years ahead, we don’t need to change it to “Absent Friends.”

Over the course of this year, I plan to feature other organisms from time to time, and see if I can’t draw some sort of link between them and Marmorkrebs.